Monday, April 25, 2011

Interview: Erica Nelson, Author of Happiness Quotations

Joining us today is Erica Nelson, author of Happiness Quotations: Gentle Reminders of Your Preciousness. Erica became a news reporter right out of college. She wrote for the Sacramento Bee, Santa Barbara News Press, and was the winner of awards for her journalism efforts. Erica left newspapers in 1990 and turned to a wonderful career in philanthropy. She started at Intel Corporation, helping give money and computers to schools, and developed Intel’s volunteer program at the Santa Clara, CA site. Erica rose to program director before leaving in 2004 to raise her family. She is now a happiness author and coach.

Welcome to The Book Connection, Erica. We're thrilled to have you with us. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a writer, mom of three small children, owner of a beautiful horse, and I somehow balance everything that is always going on in my life with my family, career and dreams. I coach people who want to become more powerful, more successful, happier, more at ease with themselves and more able to manifest the life they dream about. I have a gift for seeing what needs to happen (for others) although I can’t always see this for myself.

When did you begin writing?

I’ve been writing since I was a child, it started with poetry and song lyrics. I would ride my bicycle under the trees at Stanford University, not far from where I grew up, and always have a pad of paper with me for the thoughts, poems, ideas and words that always seemed to be coming to me to write down. It became a job in the 1980s, when I started news reporting. My first book was published in 2007, Prospect When You Are Happy, and its job was to help people get clear on business prospecting from a positive mindset. Now I write about happiness, this stirs me, wakes me up too early, gets me motivated and inspired and I can’t seem to stop writing passages about how to get clear, how to expect more, how to break through barriers, and how to become more of that which I believe all of us already are inside – endless capability, spirit, soul embodied in physical beingness.

What is this book about?

Happiness Quotations: Gentle Reminders of Your Preciousness is a series of inspirational passages. You can open to any page, and let the words inspire you to change. I’ll open a page now and share what comes up for your audience:

“You Can Create a Bigger Playground. Consider the walls you have built were built for a reason. Don’t hate them. Don’t resist them. Know that the walls of your life were built to keep you safe, but you can break free from them at any time. You created your walls, you can create a bigger playground for your life.”
The passage goes on and suggests “You can say yes to your ideas. You have to remember how. Start by expanding one or two areas of your life.”

The book has over 125 Happiness Quotations, each designed to wake you up and get you into the world expansive, open, ready to live more fully, deeply and with more joy.


What inspired you to write it?

I woke up last September on my birthday, and decided it was time for the next book to show up. I opened up my heart and asked for divine inspiration, and Happiness Quotations was born. I also went on Google and looked for keywords that people type in when they want to feel happiness, because I was writing about it a lot in my journal. Happiness is the perfect venue for daily inspirations that are always showing up in my head.

Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?

Go to http://www.happinessquotations.com/ and pick up a copy of the book from Amazon. You can also find out about my happiness and virtual positivity classes, workshops and webinars, download free audio, and follow book signing events in the San Francisco Bay Area.

What is up next for you?

There is already a next book, the passages are being written. I am calling it HQ2 yet it will certainly earn a title of its own when that book gets closer to being born. This summer I'll be touring bookstores with Happiness Quotations, kids in tow.

Thanks for joining us today, Erica. We wish you continued success.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks! for sharing